Winning by default

Winning by default

Whenever a company is asked about its environment performance, it flashes its compliance record. True, compliance at the production plant has never been a problem for the Indian automobile sector -- it has scored 68 per cent marks in the compliance status. But its good performance has got to do with bad laws. Lax regulations make it easy for companies to meet minimum environment targets. This is mainly because the regulations are not in tune with the kind and amount of wastes that are generated at the production plants of the automobile companies. In many cases irrational.

For example, the biological oxygen demand (bod) limit for the pulp and paper industry -- which produces large quantities of highly biologically polluted wastewater -- and the automobile industry is the same, though automobile industry produces very little biological pollution. The result is that every company is comfortable meeting the 30 milligramme per litre (mg/l) limit without doing anything. As many as 13 companies (50 per cent) had no problems with compliance in last three years and have scored 100 per cent marks.

The kind of waste generated by the automobile sector is not biological, but chemical in nature. What most companies do is mix this water with the wastewater generated from civil use. The problem is with the segregation of waste, and most companies don't do it. As a result, most units end up with either more biologically polluted wastewater or more chemically polluted water. When grp confronted the companies with the issue, they pointed fingers at the prescriptive schedule of the state pollution control board for the lack of segregation.

The project's analysis indicates that of the five wastewater parameters, four can be met without any treatment. The only parameter for which treatment is required is bod and that too is not contributed by the production process but by the civil consumption. In other words, of the five major wastewater parameters -- bod, chemical oxygen demand (cod), oil and grease, chromium and nickel -- automobile sector can meet all parameters, except bod, without any treatment facility.

Moreover, Indian automobile companies are just happy to meet the regulatory standard for air emissions. They have not shown any interest to move beyond the prescribed norms. This is the reason for their average score of 30 per cent obtained by the sector in air emission. For example, most companies do not monitor the volatile organic compounds (voc) emanating from their paint section because this is not a regulatory requirement.

As many as 25 per cent of the companies have admitted that they do not have a proactive approach and would rather follow government regulations rather than set new standards. Currently, Indian vehicles are meeting Euro ii equivalent norms in the National Capital Region of Delhi and other metros and Euro i equivalent norms in the rest of the country. Meeting the norms is the bare minimum requirement and every company has to meet the norms legally. The big question is how good the vehicles are when we consider regulatory norms as the base line. To find out, grp compared the average emissions of vehicles with their respective regulatory norms for all automotive segments, to find the deviation of the emissions from the norms. The findings were significant.Every segment was meeting more than what the standards prescribed. In the mass-transport vehicle segment, tail-pipe emissions were as much as 66.2 per cent better than the applicable regulatory norms. For example, particulate emissions from the two cng-fuelled mass transport vehicles are as much as 73 per cent better than the regulatory norms. Petrol passenger cars segment comes next with 59.07 per cent followed by four-stroke two-wheelers with 53.14 per cent and two-stroke two wheelers with 40.80 per cent.

The emissions from diesel passenger cars and multiutility vehicles are just 22 per cent better than the applicable regulatory norms. This is also the minimum deviation that any automobile segment has from the applicable norms.

The writing is on the wall for the Union government: make the norms stringent to arrest the worsening air pollution.